The final suppression of the First Jewish Revolt was achieved with the siege and capture of the two Herodian fortress-palaces of Machaerus and Masada. The Roman siege operations at the two sites will be discussed both in the light of the archaeological evidence and the literary narratives provided by Josephus. In each case, the surviving field works allow us to reconstruct plausible models of how the Roman siege system was deployed and how legio X Fretensis, the formation responsible for the prosecution of operations, reacted to the challenges inherent to the reduction of these two targets.

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Dr. Bridget Buxton is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Rhode Island. She holds degrees from Victoria University in Wellington (M.A. with distinction) and a Ph....